PHIL 001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Moral Relativism, Subjectivism, Relativism
14 May 2018
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Week 6A – Ethics - introduction
PHILOSOPHY – MAY 6, 2018
Outline:
- Normativity and Ethics
- Ethical Theories
- Subjectivism
- Cultural Moral Relativism
Clicker Question: do you think that Luca should adopt the grading by lottery?
a. Yes
b. Yes
c. Yes
d. He should toss a coin
e. No
Why Not
Different kinds of reasons:
1. Prudential
a. Concerns for one’s well-being
b. Don’t eat healthy food!
2. Legal
a. Concern with respect of the law
b. Don’t drive on the left side of the road!
3. Etiquette
a. Concern with propriety in behavior
b. Don’t look at Facebook in class
4. Aesthetic
a. Concern with beauty, pleasantness
b. Don’t wear primary saturated colors together!
5. Moral
What is distinctive of moral norms?
A common-sense response: those that concern killing, stealing, cheating, euthanasia, etc.
- A distinctive content
But philosophy does not want to take this content for granted
- It wants a justification for what counts as moral
So a different way to individuate what counts as moral
Structural: moral norms are those that are:
1. Decisive and overriding
2. Grounds for distinctive praise and blame/guilt
3. Impartial
4. Non-arbitrary and reason-based
5. (possibly) Universal
Morality and Ethics
Morality: actual beliefs and practices about right and wrong actions, good and bad persons, and characters
- descriptive
Ethics/Moral philosophy: the philosophical study of the correct moral norms
- normative
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Week 6A – Ethics - introduction
PHILOSOPHY – MAY 6, 2018
Normative vs. Descriptive
1. Descriptive: What IS the case
2. Normative/Prescriptive: What Should be the case
Questions in Ethics:
1. Which things ought one do?
a. What morals norms are correct?
2. Where does the content of the norms come from?
a. What makes certain amount right or wrong?
3. Where does the norms’ authority come from?
An Ethical Theory tries to offer systematic answers
First Attempt
Acting morally is a matter of sticking to one’s principles, rules, standards, or norms
Problem: These principles might be wrong or misguided
(say, the terrorist who kills out of her moral convictions)
Another Attempt
Acting morally is a matter of acting out of one’s intuitions, conscience, or gut feelings
Problem: these responses can be biased, shortsighted, etc.
Morality and justification
Trouble with both proposals: they describe the actual sources of one’s moral conduct but make no room fro
criticism and justification of this conduct.
A more promising theory
What is a moral - is whatever promotes my (long term) self being
Ethical egoism (EG)
An improvement
It allows for error and criticism
- I might fail to act as morally required…
- If my action does not in fact promote my self-interest
A common argument for EE
Starts from Physiological Egoism (PE)
- All human actions are, as matter of fact, motivated by selfish desires
Then adds the principle that morality can only require us to act as we are motivated to act
Conclusion: morality requires us to pursue our well-being (EE)
Clicker Question
Trouble in going from PE to EE
1. Does morality really require us to act as we are motivated to act?
2. We are often mistaken about our long-term self-interest
At most, we are necessarily motivated to act by what we believe to be in our long-term self-niterest:
But EE requires us to pursue what it is in fact in out self-interest not what we believe, possibly mistakenly, to be
in our self-interest.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Clicker question: do you think that luca should adopt the grading by lottery: yes, yes, yes, he should toss a coin, no. A common-sense response: those that concern killing, stealing, cheating, euthanasia, etc. But philosophy does not want to take this content for granted. It wants a justification for what counts as moral. So a different way to individuate what counts as moral. Structural: moral norms are those that are: decisive and overriding, grounds for distinctive praise and blame/guilt, impartial, non-arbitrary and reason-based, (possibly) universal. Morality: actual beliefs and practices about right and wrong actions, good and bad persons, and characters. Ethics/moral philosophy: the philosophical study of the correct moral norms. Normative vs. descriptive: descriptive: what is the case, normative/prescriptive: what should be the case. An ethical theory tries to offer systematic answers. Acting morally is a matter of sticking to one"s principles, rules, standards, or norms.
